1kw wind turbine project

[Highlander]

Project,,... 1kw, 48v system, wind turbine off grid set up

We are now at the end of our first wind turbine power operations, and although the project was not without its problems we think that the end results have worked out perfect

It all started with a hole in the ground, 1 meter square




Although we did do our research, we were never absolutely sure of how the turbine would work in the location we chose for it,.. so we put a cube into the foundation, the base of the lower half of the turbine tower is 3 inches smaller than the pipe, the idea was that if we did have to move it at all, we would have a lot less concrete to break up in order to get the tower out




We put in the lower half of the tower and left it for a week for the concrete to harden off



I hope I can explain the next bit ok,.. the tower is not a manufactured wind turbine tower, it is a standard lamp tower that was given to me, we had it looked at by an engineering firm to make sure that it was strong enough for the job, which it is easily,... the tower comes in two halves and is hinged about 8 ft above the ground, but the bottom part is secured at the base, and we have added a two tonne boat winch to aid lowering and raising ..I forgot to take a photo of this, so I hope my drawing explains it ok



Here you can see it locked in place, you can just see the two halves where they meet



The battery bank is made up of eight 12v, 115ah, deep cycle battery's



The controller is on the right, the stop switch on the left, and the blue inverter left again. We did not include a dump in here, we didn't want the type that put excess power into the air, that seems a waste, so our dump is sent up to the hot water tank, so when the battery's are at their fullest, all extra power is then helping to heat our hot water





The main cable enters the house through a socket like you see in a caravan site, it then goes to an isolator switch next to the house mains switches, this switch is important because it makes sure that you cant have the wind power on at the same time as the main grid power,...so if we have a power cut, the power we are producing cant possibly electrocute the person fixing the mains grid

This photo also shows a station that measures the wind, and is shown wireless on a window in the house, the manufactures suggest that the turbine is stopped [ but not lowered ] when the wind speed reaches 28kph,..we have done this a few times,.. but we are very pleased we added the boat winch, [ we didn't have to because it is locked by a sliding locking piece ]....because the gales we had last week, forces us to do our first lowering, and the two of us did it in under 10 minutes including undoing the guy wires,.. the next day I raised it myself in about the same time,... so that winch has made life extremely easy for us

[Spandex228]

Very impressive

[Timelord]

Overall cost?

[Nix]

Excellent stuff!

Not sure why you have the isolation switch for the grid though? Surely you feed the batteries and then dump to the hot water via the inverter so where's the connection to the grid?

The other thing you may want to consider is a further dump when the hot water is at it's max and trips out. Unlike solar, turbines need a dump unless you have control over the turbine fan speed eg braking system?

Looks a really good job there and I'm jealous! Can't put mine up cos of neighbour proximity.

[Bulletscott]

Living the dream, I would love to live off the grid in a small holding and undertake projects such as this, instead I'm in this urban prison.

Well done though mate looks great!

[Highlander]

(9 December 2013, 22:25)Timelord Wrote: Overall cost?

TL,... round it off to £3000

(9 December 2013, 23:04)Nix Wrote: Excellent stuff!

Not sure why you have the isolation switch for the grid though? Surely you feed the batteries and then dump to the hot water via the inverter so where's the connection to the grid?

The other thing you may want to consider is a further dump when the hot water is at it's max and trips out. Unlike solar, turbines need a dump unless you have control over the turbine fan speed eg braking system?

Looks a really good job there and I'm jealous! Can't put mine up cos of neighbour proximity.

Sorry I didnt explain well,.. If we had a power cut, and we turned onto battery power,... there would always be a chance that the person fixing the grid power down the road would get a shock from the power we were producing from our turbine,...so by law there must be a way of turning the mains power off before you use any other sort of power, be it Wind, solar or generator

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(10 December 2013, 02:02)Bulletscott Wrote: Living the dream, I would love to live off the grid in a small holding and undertake projects such as this, instead I'm in this urban prison.

Well done though mate looks great!

We do not live off grid all the time,... maybe this is also what you mean Nix,.... The batterys are there for two reasons, to give us power during a power cut, and to use the dump to help with the hot water.

We are on mains power just like everyone else aided by our 3.5 solar power, but come 6pm every night, we switch over from the mains power to the battery's [ provided we have enough wind and full battery's of course,.. when we go to bed we switch back to mains power

We have four freezers, these are on timers, so that they go off from 6pm to midnight,.. from 6pm the batterys give us enough power for a few lights, the fridge, central heating pump, the telly and the computer

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(9 December 2013, 23:04)Nix Wrote: The other thing you may want to consider is a further dump when the hot water is at it's max and trips out. Unlike solar, turbines need a dump unless you have control over the turbine fan speed eg braking system?

This is of interest to us,.. we did think hard about the dump, clearly we didn't want to waste power so thought that the dump to the hot water was best, we then wondered about what happens when the fire [ which also does the hot water ] reaches the thermostat temp and cuts out, what happens to the dump then

We were told by `Future Energy` the people we bought the system off,...that a 48v dump wouldn't generate a great deal, and not to worry about that,.. we were never quiet sure about that answer

I didn't know that you can have two dumps, so thank's for that we will look into that, any other info you have there would be very welcome

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Nix,.. we know that you can get hot water tanks that have two thermostats holes, so in this case one would be for the fire central heating, and the other for the dump,.. then its possible to lower the thermostat from the fire a bit, and the other thermostat from the dump to continue heating,.. it would never reach extreme temps,..this maybe the better way forward

[Tigs]

fantastic work NI

[Nix]

Hi Highlander - still confused about your turbine set up. Obviously you have a solar grid tie set up via Future Energy at 3.5kW (14 x 250W panels) so that's a given? Therefore, the way I see it, it's one of two ways:

- either the grid tie system allows for you to tie in your turbine as well which means you are already G83 compliant with regards to isolating your energy generation to the grid in the event of it going down

- or your turbine is "off grid" ie not tied into the grid in any way in which case you have no worries about isolating it in the event of a blackout cos it's an independent system running off batteries and your own 24v inverter

I'm assuming you are running the dump via a 24v immersion coil? Either that or through your own off grid inverter to something like a 1kW mains coil like I do?

I would definitely consider a second dump option. When my system is powering the hot water tank, it will reach maximum temperature in about an hour and a half. If your fire is also heating it, albeit at a lower thermostat setting, it will only mean that the dump has less to do and top out sooner. Should be relatively easy to circuit in a 2nd dump to cover this eventuality. Don't underestimate the power of a 1kW turbine on a windy day! I'm surprised the installation company were dismissive about it.

Sounds like you have a fantastic set up going there m8ty!

[Highlander]

Hi Nix,... The Solar is grid tied so has no connection to the Turbine, the Turbine is completely off grid, not tied in any way.

I think where the confusion lies is that the isolator switch was originally put in to connect our generator,.. the switch even has the words `gen off, mains on`, `mains on, gen off`,... so when we put the Turbine up the obvious way of getting the power into the house was via this same inlet

I was also told that this switch was a legal necessity , because in the case of a power cut any power we were producing would be a threat to the electrician without such a switch

This is the switch in question

[Nix]

Ok, that's making a lot more sense. So, your turbine is powering your 24v inverter with the battery bank acting as a regulator and back up. When the mains goes down, a manual switch then allows you to isolate the grid and switch to back up both at the same time thereby making sure no mistakes are made. Can't see a problem there.
But where I do see a potential problem is in the dump. Most turbines are designed so that if they don't have a dump load, they can over speed and self destruct ie they must have a resistance load to work against at all times. If your batteries are charged up and the hot water is at maximum, you could damage the turbine without an additional shunt controller at work, unless the turbine has it's own safety brake?

Just curious, how exactly are you heating your hot water when using the battery back up system?